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President's Letters

Our Covington Mission

Wednesday, March 26, 2014 • • General
Our President's Letters

A true spiritual perspective begins when we are oriented away from the world, the flesh, and the devil to the mind of Christ.  That is the work of God the Holy Spirit.  Jesus calls Him the “Spirit of Truth.”  John 14:17; John 16:13  “He will guide you into all truth.”  16:14  “He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.”  John 17: 17  “Sanctify them by your truth.  Your Word is truth.”  That sanctifying process by which we “grow in grace and knowledge of Christ our Lord” is the means of our orientation to God.  Otherwise, we are left to our worldly and religious mindsets where we reason out of our lower orientation and call it God.

The Corinthian church had developed this carnal mindset to its farthest level.  3:1  “And I, brethren could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ.”  They were carnal baby thinkers and had lived on milk and pabulum to the point that they could no longer even receive truth to develop but remained fleshly in their values, perspectives, and reasoning.  The evidence of their retarded spiritual development was more than obvious in their envy, strife, and divisions.  They were redeemed by Paul’s estimation but in their behavior they reflected their carnal nature as they lived as mere men.  The Apostle used eleven chapters in his first letter to them to expose their “carnalities.”

Our calling as a seminary is to rightly divide the Word of truth.  Our focus cannot be to equip our students with denominational perspectives so that they might win roles in their denomination.  Neither are we called to equip students with credentials for them to teach in secular schools.  We are “equippers of the equippers.”  Ephesians 4:12  “For the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ;”  Note the continuation of this thought in verses 13-16.

Periodically, we are asked why our focus and why we do not pursue secular accreditation.  We believe that we are both committed and effective in our primary assignment and we are “too busy building this wall to come down.”  Our focus is not to build edifices or programs.  We endeavor to keep it simple and to refrain from causing overbearing financial debts that weigh God’s servants down.  I spoke to a dynamic young man recently that had completed his masters’ level studies at a traditional seminary, which we celebrate.  He did remark, however, that while he was now in his mid-twenties, he would be past fifty years old when he paid off his educational debt.

For us, those approaches are foreign to our mission and to our commitment.  We want to send out vibrant spirit-filled leaders that have a Christ centered, a Bible centered, and a Gospel centered faith.  When these dynamic individuals assume their leadership roles in Christ’s churches, the impact of those lives will touch eternity.

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